


gentle hands

by KnifingGale



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Adler makes an appearance, Age Difference, Bell Needs A Hug, Bell whump, Established Relationship, F/M, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Just to be safe, Mature only because of that night terror scene, Night Terrors, Perseus Gives Bell That Hug, Pre-Relationship, Protective Perseus, Sharing a Bed, Soft Perseus, implied established relationship, well I mean kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28963893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnifingGale/pseuds/KnifingGale
Summary: His gentleness broke her more than MK Ultra ever did.OrIn which Bell is haunted by the voices of the dead and Perseus helps her through it all.
Relationships: Bell (Call of Duty)/Perseus (Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	gentle hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrimReaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrimReaper/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Rainy Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28728471) by [FrimReaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrimReaper/pseuds/FrimReaper). 



> tw: night terrors, brief descriptions of decaying flesh (there's context I swear).

“ _Bell_ ,” you shuddered at the way he rolled that _name_. Heated breath brushed against the skin of your neck at his words. A haze of the smell of nicotine, blood, and decaying flesh filled your senses. 

You kept your eyes tightly shut. You knew better. No matter what, you shouldn’t open your eyes. 

Yet he always tried to make you open your eyes and see him.

Large gloved hands trailed down your neck almost affectionately, lingering over the scars he marked on you. You fought the urge to twitch at the feeling of cool leather brushing over one particular lengthy scar running down your neck. 

“Do you really think Perseus is going to let you live?” he asked almost amusedly. The same kind of tone he used all those nights ago in the safehouse- _Have you ever been attacked by a tiger, Bell?_ -

You flinched underneath him. Your hands grasped the sheets underneath you. Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to move and throw him off of you-

A feeling of primal fear gripped you.

 _Like a rabbit frozen in the jaws of a wolf_ , you thought numbly. 

“You’ve ruined so many things for him, kid,” he sighed. You could almost see the image of him shaking his head down at you with exasperation. Those pair of ever-present shades hiding the look of disappointment, “Volkov, Aldrich, Rudnik...You were being so good for us until Duga.” 

His hands grasped your neck firmly. Yet soon, his grip tightened and tightened until blood rushing around your ears and heat burn your throat and chest in desperation-

“Perseus will kill you,” he whispered, his breath caressing your ear, “How will he do it? Poison? He always liked you enjoying a bottle of vodka with him in his study.” he mused out loud. You finally brought yourself to claw at the hands around your neck. Flesh raked and peeled under your nails, soft and decaying from all those days rotting in Duga. 

But he didn’t stop there.

“But maybe, maybe he’ll make an example out of you. Drink that customary shot of vodka at the meeting and collapsed onto the floor, grasping your neck desperately. And everyone will just watch as you die writhing on the floor.”

The sickly sweet smell of decaying flesh grew stronger in the air. You nearly gagged at the scent reaching your mouth. Your legs kicked underneath him. Yet he was hopelessly larger than you, pinning you down on the sheets. 

You could nearly see him smile above you, “You’ll die like the pathetic traitor you are. Really you couldn’t choose a side you hadn’t screwed over, Bell? Too fucked up for Perseus, too ruined for the Americans-”

**_“Любимая.”_ **

Your eyes shot open. 

His weight was still on top of you with hands pinning you to the bed. Hot streaks of pain throbbed at your neck. A scream escaped your throat. _No, no, no, he couldn’t possibly be here_ -

“ _Стоп_!” 

You stilled at the command. 

Finally looking up, you found yourself staring at Perseus himself, his usually brushed back salt and pepper hair tousled and disheveled. Cerulean eyes stared down at you with their usual focused intent. Yet there was something wilder, desperate in his eyes. 

“Sir?” you instinctively asked breathlessly. His expression darkened slightly at your words. 

_Ah_ , you thought with an internal wince. It was an _American_ honorific. 

You glanced down only to notice how your hands tightly grasped the lapels of his olive-green Soviet military coat. Flinching immediately, you jerked back your hands, recoiling from him with a quiet apology already falling off your lips. 

Perseus sighed, staring down at you before the look in his eyes softened ever so slightly. He released your hands and pulled back from you, moving to sit on the side of the bed instead. 

You pulled yourself up as well, leaning against the wooden headboard. The presence of it was a comforting one- _no attacks from behind_ -yet you couldn’t help the inescapable feeling that you were cornered and alone. 

“Forgive me,” he said gently in his thickly accented voice, “You were hurting yourself, comrade.” You distantly brought a hand to your throat while looking at the vanity mirror right across from the bed. Angry red scratch marks marred your throat. 

You stared down at your hands. 

You did that to yourself. 

“I was worried your wounds would reopen,” he continued on. Your hands trembled in your lap. You bit your lip worriedly. Why, why did he have to say all of those words so gently?

You ruined so many things for him. 

Just like Adler said. So why-

“Just kill me,” you finally said those words weighing on your mind ever since you followed him in Duga, “I don’t have anything to give you.” You closed your eyes, relief flooding your chest. 

You told him the truth. 

All that you had to offer...you gave to him in Duga. 

And really, that was just getting rid of the nuisance Adler and his team posed to his operations. 

That was it.

There was no other reason to keep you around. 

“Oh, _Любимая_ ,” Perseus said tenderly, his large calloused hand cupping your face, “I could never kill you.” 

You blinked. You couldn’t help the laughter that escaped your chest. It came out as more of a sob really. Heat pricked at your eyes as your chest tightened. The little golden sickle and star pin on the lapels of his coat blurred in front of you. 

The affection was so clear and evident in his voice. Yet you couldn’t help but be in disbelief of it. No matter what your past with him was- _closer than a subordinate was all you could guess_ -you were still nothing but a liability.

And you knew how Perseus dealt with liabilities. 

All those past files in the safehouse were records of compromised assets Perseus disposed of with calculating ruthlessness. Ever since Duga, you always thought you would be one of those files the CIA would eventually put in there.

Sometimes, you wished he wasn’t so gentle with you.

Because ultimately-

_....his gentleness broke you more than MK Ultra ever did._

“And,” he continued on gently, “You did not ruin everything. We have ushered in a new chapter for the Soviet Era, a better one. Despite what they did to you, you broke through and ensured that.” 

“I could not be prouder.”

You glanced down at the praise as your chest tightened even more inexplicably. You blinked. A tear escaped your eye, falling down your cheek in a heated trail. 

“H-he told me,” you started with your voice ragged and hoarse, “-That you’re going to kill me. M-maybe poison? You’d have me drink it in a shot of vodka during a meeting. M-make an example out of me,” you couldn’t help the stutter in your words. Your voice trembled and shook from the silent sobs wracking your chest. 

Suddenly, he tilted your head up. 

“Who told you this?” Perseus asked, his voice low and deathly calm. Yet his darkened cerulean eyes betrayed his true emotions.

_Rage._

You couldn’t look away, even when you said _his_ name. 

“Adler,” you confessed quietly, the name falling off your lips so easily. You had said it so many times, both in the safehouse and in your sleep. The clutches of the nightmares haunting you forced the name out of your lips. Although, truth be told, sometimes other figures pinned your paralyzed self to the bed, whispering and hissing all those words into your ear. 

_Adler, Arash, Volkov, Rudnik-_

The voices of the dead haunted you. 

You waited for Perseus to say something, anything to your quiet confession. 

Yet he remained silent, staring down at you with _something_ in his eyes. 

Slowly, like one not wanting to spook a frightened animal, he grasped your shoulders with one arm and gently pulled you towards him. You froze momentarily, your hands dangling uselessly at your sides. _The memory of hands grasping at you while words were hissed into your ear in a terrible yet intimate manner haunted you_ \- 

But you let yourself be pulled into his arms. 

You blinked, finding your head resting against his shoulder on the olive-green fabric of his coat. You felt so small and vulnerable against him in that moment. He could easily bring up a hand to snap your neck without you even knowing. Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to panic. 

_Yes_ , you thought distantly, something tired and drained inside of you, _I trust him_. 

Only after several quiet passing moments in his arms did you realize something.

You had been trembling. 

A few tremors still wracked your body, your shoulders shuddering ever so often with the occasional instinctive sob escaping you. But everything was suddenly more _still_.

For once, you could just _breathe_. 

Hesitantly, you brought your arms up from your sides and brought them around him, awkwardly hugging Perseus back. You felt some of the tension leave his shoulders with a muted sigh escaping him. 

He leaned down, resting his head on your shoulder as his arms held you against him. Heat rushed to your cheeks, the intimacy of it all so familiar yet flustering at the same time. 

“ _Прости меня. Я должен был защитить тебя_ ,” Perseus confessed against your shoulder, something raw in his deep voice. In that moment, you wished you remembered Russian. That last MK Ultra injection Adler forced you through had damaged your memory in certain ways, taking away your fluency in Russian. 

You couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. Any words you had remained stuck in your throat. And so you simply rested your head against his shoulder, noting the smell of cognac and ink clinging to his coat. You breathed, one inhale and exhale after another until your eyes began to droop.

“You should rest,” Perseus said, beginning to pull away from you almost reluctantly. You clutched the lapels of his coat with a hesitant yet pleading look in your eyes. 

“Please,” you began, knowing you were asking for too much, “Stay.” 

His eyes softened. 

He cupped your face, wiping a stray tear away before finally speaking up. Perseus finally nodded before he smiled down at you with an almost mournful yet determined look in his eyes. 

“ _Позволь мне защитить тебя сейчас_.”

For some reason, the solemn determination in his words felt like an oath. 

It was only moments later that you processed your own words. 

_Stay_ , you thought with your face somehow heating up even more. You resisted the urge to kick yourself in that very moment. Flustered, you quickly put several pillows in the middle of the bed, building a pillow wall. 

“H-here!” you pointed with a sheepish smile, “I’ll take one side and you can, uh, take the other side.” 

Perseus stared down at the makeshift pillow wall with amusement dancing in his eyes. He nodded complacently, “The rules have been set, comrade.” he said.

Although, you couldn’t help but get the feeling he was teasing you. 

“G-good!” you said. You laid down on the bed and pulled the sheets over you, the makeshift pillow wall a comforting presence against your back. You felt the sheets rustle as your companion laid down on the bed as well. 

After silence settled in the room, you couldn’t help but stare up at the white ceiling. The surrealness of it all caught up to you. 

Did you really just ask your commanding officer to sleep in the same bed as you?

Suspected past with him or not, that was still-

You shook your head. You didn’t want to bother him with any finicky decision-making. You were just going to sleep and put this all behind you by avoiding him for the next week…

Still restless, you risked a glance towards him across the pillow wall. His broad back was facing you with the olive green coat still on him, maintaining an awkward sense of professionalism amidst this entire situation. 

And to think, this all started from yet another one of your night terrors. 

_Next time_ , you swore to yourself, _I’ll cover my mouth._

You wouldn’t bother anyone if they couldn’t hear your screams and night terrors. 

Eventually, amidst your racing thoughts, your breathing began to slow as the draining events of the past hour crept onto you. With an inexplicable feeling that you were safe no matter what-

- _You fell asleep_.

The voices of the dead haunted you no more that night. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gifting this to FrimReaper since their awesome Perseus/Bell works really inspired me to write for another Perseus/Bell fic again with Soft Perseus. It's really great to see Perseus/Bell fics on ao3 that aren't something I wrote for once. And they're all so well-written. I also put this fic as inspired by one of their Perseus/Bell fics, Rainy Day, since that fic really inspired me to write this one out. 
> 
> Anyways, hopefully this one-shot didn't come out as too cringey. I'm not used to writing such physical affection and my writing has been off and kinda bad recently so apologies if this came out like something written out of a poorly written harlequin novel. Also...would anyone be interested in seeing a sequel of sorts for this where a flustered Bell tries to avoid Perseus in the days after that night? 
> 
> Well, I hope this didn't come out too bad. Thanks for reading!


End file.
